AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

So my poison is Shakespeare ... can't get enough!

In high school (in South Africa), Shakespeare was pounded into us with numbing repetition. Mostly it was the sonnets, shredded apart by the teacher with the expectation that we were all on the same page.

I catagorically was not!

I hated those classes and the disiplined structure of the work, nothing but a monkey on my back. I rebelled by writing nasty sonnets and friends joined me in writing limericks about our teachers. Once, I turned in one of these sonnets and was summarily whipped, or "caned" to be more precise.

Apparently caning works better than I ever imagined. All that time and I thought it was just a status thing ... who can get caned the most? Well, me! We marked the back of our ties every time we were cut (as we called it), I always had more than anyone else and was proud of it. I don't know what kind of brain damage causes a person to seek out punishment of this kind, but I did, I relished it!

So how is it that more than 30 years later, I find myself listening to books about Shakespeare on CD every day when I climb into bed? I listen to the same ones over and over, alternating CD's in each series (my CD player runs 3 deep) and this helps me go to sleep.

I could say that being a rebel is just learning the hard way, but I don't believe that. I think a true rebel learns the rules, then ... with confidence, perhaps arrogance, or even something akin to ignorance, destroys them. After all, this (in fact), is exactly what Shakeapeare himself did!

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(here's an old poem for just such an occasion)

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Shakespeare has left the building

He slipped out back mumbling to himself...
Was it just iambic pentameter?
We so need to know, don’t you think? I mean
Was it something unsaid that vexes him?

Vow a vow of silence before the bard.
Bow a bow of reverence for his art.

....

Jeff